


Celebrations

by Glisseo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Teacher!Harry AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 08:50:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10783506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glisseo/pseuds/Glisseo
Summary: Exam results day is always difficult for teachers.





	Celebrations

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the lovely and talented Anna (ladyknightley) on her birthday. I'd just like to say that I cannot relate to this AT ALL (lies ...)

**August 2007**  
“I can’t look,” said Harry, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. “I can’t look … Can you do it for me?”  
  
“Are you sure?”   
  
“No. Yes. No. I don’t know.”  
  
“Harry. My love. Do you want me to look?”  
  
“… yes? Yes. Please. Go on – you do it.”   
  
A sigh of mingled exasperation and amusement accompanied the rustling of parchment. Harry could hardly breathe.   
  
After what felt like hours, but was probably less than a minute, he heard Ginny say, “It’s OK!”   
  
“I-it’s OK?” Harry repeated, still not opening his eyes. “Really?”

“ _Better_ than OK,” said Ginny, and he could tell that she was smiling. “Harry – oh, open your eyes, would you! They’ve done brilliantly!”

“ _Brilliantly?”_ Not quite daring to believe it until he saw it for himself, Harry finally looked. Ginny – who, for her calm exterior, had a tremor in her hands - passed him the pieces of parchment bearing his OWL and NEWT students’ exam results. He scanned them quickly, then again more carefully, as it gradually sunk in.   
  
“They have,” he said, looking up at Ginny, disbelieving laughter bubbling in his throat. “They’ve done – they did – they all passed! They all _passed!_  They  _all_ passed!”  
  
“Well, of course they did,” she said, giggling at his astonishment. “They had you.”   
  
Spontaneously, Harry kissed her, then went back to staring at the parchment. “It’s not me, though, they worked really hard … they would have done this well without me …”  
  
“Oh, codswallop,” said Ginny, going to put the kettle on. “Would you just admit that you’re brilliant and enjoy it, for once?”   
  
There was a knock at the door. Harry went to answer it, still clutching the results in his hand, feeling as if he were floating on air rather than tripping over James’s toy broomstick. He opened the door and found Neville, hopping up and down in the manner of someone very desperate for the toilet, waving a bundle of parchment.   
  
“HARRY! Did you – did you get –”  
  
“Passed,” said Harry, beaming, “all of them!”  
  
“Me too!” shouted Neville delightedly, leaping from one foot to the other. “Me too! All of them!”  
  
“Congratulations, Nev,” said Ginny warmly, appearing at Harry’s side. “Er – do you need to use the loo?”  
  
“No, no,” said Neville. He looked as happy as Harry felt. “Are you coming down to the pub? All the staff usually do, after results.”  
  
Harry and Ginny exchanged glances. “They do?”  
  
“Oh, yeah, you  should see McGonagall knock them back,” said Neville cheerfully. Ginny pressed both hands to her mouth to muffle her giggles. “Bit disturbing at first, but you get used to it. Coming?”  
  
“Er – sure,” said Harry. “If that’s all right?” he added to Ginny, who hiccupped and nodded.   
  
“I’m going to take the boys to the Burrow so I can write up yesterday’s match. You go, have fun – but  _don’t_ try and outdrink Hagrid, it never ends well …”  
  
Promising that he wouldn’t – he wasn’t keen to repeat that experience – Harry strolled down to the Three Broomsticks with Neville, who was bounding along like a large excitable dog. The inn wasn’t crowded at this time of day, and Madam Rosmerta greeted them cheerily from behind the bar. A number of the teachers were clustered around the largest table: McGonagall, Hagrid, and Flitwick were there, as was Forsythia Bloom, the Potions mistress, and Septima Vector, the Arithmancy witch. They waved Harry and Neville over, all looking much brighter and more relaxed than they did during termtime.   
  
“I understand congratulations are in order!” Flitwick squeaked, as they drew up stools. “Excellent, boys!”   
  
The ‘boys’ grinned.   
  
“Excellent indeed,” said McGonagall, with one of her rare smiles. “Not that I was surprised, I must say. I think that conclusively proves that Professor Potter here was the right man for the job.”  
  
“Hear, hear,” said the others, and Harry felt himself turn scarlet.   
  
It felt quite bizarre to be drinking with his former teachers, which was perhaps why he drank his first pint far quicker than he normally would have done, but it was – surprisingly – rather fun, too. He supposed they had always been – well, people. Had they done this when  _his_ year had received their results? He tried, and failed, to imagine Snape drinking a pint.  
  
After a while, the staff started to leave one by one, with other things to do; even Hagrid left to feed Fang and see to groundskeeping duties, until only Harry and Neville, still riding high on their – and their students’ – success, remained. Harry kept thinking about his classes, and their reactions as they opened their results – Isla Stuart, who had been so nervous and in need of constant reassurance that she would be fine, would be delighted with her ‘E’; and Cuthbert McCormack, who wanted to be an Auror and had got the ‘O’ he needed. To know that he had played a part, however big or small, in their achievement, flooded him with a warmth he could not fully describe. He was fairly certain it was the achievement, at least, and not the alcohol, though after the third – or was it fourth? – it became slightly harder to tell.   
  


* * *

“Shall we?” Ginny asked, eyebrows raised.  
  
“After you,” said Hannah.   
  
Ginny pushed open the door of the Three Broomsticks and led the way inside. She saw her husband at once, sitting so far back in his chair he was in danger of toppling off it. Beside him, Neville, very red in the face, was wearing a witch’s hat. Both were giggling hysterically. At what, precisely, Ginny could not determine.  
  
She and Hannah approached the table. It took several minutes for their presence to register with the two wizards.   
  
“Gin!” Harry cried, which she took as a greeting and not a description of what he was drinking. “C’mnavadrink!”  
  
“Sorry?”  
  
“C’mnava … c’mnava …. ohIdunno.” He blinked at his glass.   
  
“I think you’ve had enough,” said Ginny gently. “Time to go home now, darling.”  
  
“S’late?” said Neville, surprise rendering the pitch of his voice several octaves higher than usual.  
  
“No,” said Hannah. “It’s five o’clock. So you lightweights are going home, and Ginny and I are going to have a glass of wine.”  
  
“I like wine,” said Harry.  
  
Ginny patted his head. “I know you do, my petal, but you’re not having any now.”  
  
“OK,” he agreed, letting her help him unsteadily to his feet. “Maybe later?”  
  
“Maybe,” Ginny lied. She turned to Hannah. “Are you all right getting Neville in the Floo?”  
  
“Oh, fine. It’s not the first time,” said Hannah.  
  
Ginny bid them farewell – Harry blew a kiss – and half-helped, half-dragged her husband out of the pub. It was not easy; he was nearly a foot taller than her. She was very glad she had left James and Albus with their grandparents, to save her explaining drunken Daddy to them; she had hoped that conversation wouldn’t come til they were older.   
  
“Gin?” Harry mumbled into her shoulder as they made their awkward way up the high street.   
  
“Yes?”  
  
“I LIKE being a teacher.”


End file.
